Thank goodness that’s all over! You have to be a bit mad to try and arrange a hustings event – particularly when you have to deal with various shapes and sizes of political egos bouncing around and making various demands on the order, content, arrangements and structure of the evening.
As it happens it went fairly well with Allan Bosley doing a valiant job in chairing the evening. Not everyone in the packed community centre was entirely happy - but many were very impressed by the way CCAN had attempted to create an event which enabled all six of the candidates present to answer questions from the platform for at least part of the evening.
The BNP candidate did play ball in the end which was a positive for all of us and earned him a place on the platform in the second half alongside the Green, UKIP and Liberal Democrat candidate.
Splitting the evening into two halves with all candidates who wished to be on the platform except the BNP in the first half and having previously submitted questions helped dilute the potential for the BNP issue to dominate. However, as soon as a question was posed which asked why the Tory and Labour candidates had refused to share the stage with the BNP candidate it was clear how much unease there was beneath the surface.
The lesson, if there is one, is that yes it is perfectly possible to defeat the BNP arguments if they are presented as part of a fair and open debate - surely the ONLY way forward in an open democracy rather than a blanket refusal to engage at all.
The hustings have undoubtedly helped raise the profile of CCAN in this area and has no doubt gone some way in informing the local electorate of the strengths and weaknesses of their candidates - but I hope we don’t have to do a re-run in the near future!
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